CategoryThe Church

I was in a worship setting a few weeks ago and we sang a few songs that I was quite familiar with. Songs we’ve sung enough for me to start thinking about the lyrics. They were perfectly fine, but there wasn’t much there to consider–neither my mind nor my imagination was not stimulated.

What was going on? The words were fine, the music was fine. Then I realized what the problem was. All the songs in the set were about abstract ideas.

The lyrics of a lot of our praise and worship songs are abstract. They are about grace and freedom and fear and sin and victory and you get the picture. These are really, really good things to sing about, but we need to think about them more concretely.

Let me be clear. There is nothing inherently wrong with songs about abstract ideas. Psalm 145, a psalm of praise, is mostly abstract. If David can write a song like this, so can you. But a steady diet of this type of song is a problem–and we sing a lot of them.

We need also to sing songs that are concrete. In Psalm 98 we find harps and trumpets, the sounds of singing, ram’s horns, and geographic features: the sea, rivers, and mountains. In Psalm 103, we have “diseases,” “the pit,” “eagles,” “the east,” “the west,” “father,” “children,” “dust,” “grass,” “flowers,” “wind,” “children’s children,” “angels” and “servants.”

We interact with the world of concrete things with our bodies. Our songs, too, will engage ideas through our imaginative connections with our bodies.

Imagery

The definition of imagery that my students often recite is, “When the poem evokes one of the five senses.” This is a good definition, but it is limited because it doesn’t take into account the evocation of other physical experiences, such as nausea or cramps, that aren’t one of the five.

The word imagery is linked to imagination. When Frost writes, “The woods are lovely dark and deep,” we do not see the woods with our physical eyes, we see them with the eyes of our imagination. We have a whole body in our imagination that can experience all sorts of physical sensations. This is imagery.

Imagery is a common literary device. It’s so common because writers have long realized that we experience the world, first and foremost, through our bodies.

Poets use imagery to create vivid and realistic experiences in our imagination. To illustrate, this is Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening.”

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farmhouse near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound’s the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

There is so much to say about this poem, but we will look at just a few lines. In the last line of the first stanza we watch, though the eyes of the speaker, the “woods fill up with snow.” This short phrase communicates, without explicitly saying it, exactly the type of snowfall we are imaginatively experiencing. For the woods to “fill up,” the snow is falling straight down and it’s heavy–you know, those big fluffy flakes that fall slowly when there is no wind. All this meaning is packed into a few short words–meaning is beyond the words, so to speak because it’s all happening in our imagination.

To contrast the peaceful picture before us, the sound of the harness bells come from the impatient horse who doesn’t have any conception of a beauty that would stop a journey home to hay and oats. The three “k” sounds in, “He gives his harness bells a shake/To ask if there is some mistake,” reinforce, though sound, the contrast of the jarring bells with the soft muffled sounds of the snowy surroundings; “The only other sound’s the sweep/Of easy wind and downy flake.” Our imaginations are guided by the poet to a very specific, concrete experience.

Dark and deep woods might feel creepy, but for the word “lovely.” With this word, the image that is evoked is one of beautiful peacefulness. Taken together, readers imaginatively experience this very particular, beautiful and peaceful setting.

We have physical bodies and we are surrounded by physical things. It makes sense that our poetry would use imagery in order to communicate experience. Are there physical experiences that writers of praise music might wish to evoke in order to lead us into worship?

Imagery gives us concrete experience. Our understanding of abstract ideas comes to us through physical things as well. A good example comes from the chorus of “Great Are You Lord.”

We interact with the world, both spiritually and physically. So, our worship songs will engage our heart, mind, soul, and body. Abstract ideas of salvation, will be accessed through the concrete images of lungs and…

The Concrete Chorus of “Great Are You Lord”

One of the reasons I like “Great Are You Lord” by All Sons & Daughters is because it is so concrete–embodied even. Most of the verses are fairly abstract, praising God for giving life and being love, and bringing light to the darkness. But the chorus and the bridge bring our physical bodies into the song.

Chorus:

It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise
We pour out our praise
It’s Your breath in our lungs
So we pour out our praise to You only

Bridge:

And all the earth will shout Your praise
Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing
Great are You, Lord

While we sing the song, we confess that the air in our lungs, the one we just inhaled a moment before, is a gift from Him. And we use that very air to praise him. I think that’s amazing. If you think about it for a second, we owe him our very breath. And what else can we do in response to this realization but use that gift in worship? This little line is incredible. In the very act of singing, we are doing what we are singing about. And it’s so biological.

Isn’t this breath-to-praise pattern part our everyday worship? Any and every gift from God can be just as seamlessly turned into praise of the giver. This is what holistic worship is. We worship God with our all the gifts he’s given us. Everything from the most basic breath, to our time, money, talents and passions, are turned into praise in the same seamless beauty in which we breathe and sing.

Wow! When this dawns on you, it changes the way you sing the song. It’s an idea that moves from the body, through the imagination to the mind and it evokes the emotion of gratitude and the desire to worship. That’s what I’m talking about–holistic worship. That’s what I am advocating for all songs that we sing in church.

The bridge is just as biological, and just as spiritually profound. It states that “All the earth will sing your praise.” The earth is that physical reality in which we live and it praises God in all its physicality. What would be more natural, than the crown of creation joining the terrestrial chorus in praise of our creator? But it’s not our voices this time, nor our feelings or thoughts. It’s not even our souls or spirits. In league with the rest of the material world, our very bones–the core of our physical being, will sing praise. This is profound in every sense of the term.

Again, the repeated singing of these lines brings you deeper into worship as the profundity of this idea sinks into our understanding.

Our whole life is about interaction with the world, both spiritually and physically. To worship with our whole heart, mind, soul, and body would naturally involve songs about abstract ideas of salvation, accessed through the concrete images of lungs and bones, the cross, bread and wine, mountains and flowers, harps and trumpets, rain snow, and . . . a horse and bridle?

Audience

Audience and purpose are foundational considerations for any piece of writing.

The audience of a praise and worship song is certainly our Creator, Lord, Redeemer, and Comforter. Having God as our audience will certainly impact our writing; we’d probably want it to be as good as we can make it, not necessarily for his sake, but for ours.

The audience also includes those who will be singing the song. The song will be different, both musically and lyrically, if it is meant to be sung by fidgety five-year-olds who tug on their ears and put their dresses over their heads. The group which we call “youth” have different requirements for a worship song. They like self-focused and angsty songs and ones that repeat words like “gonna.” For most of the songs we sing on Sunday the audience is multi-generational and are written accordingly. The point is, know your audience, and write accordingly.

Purpose

A praise and worship song must also have a purpose. This seems obvious. Of course, they all have one general purpose: to bring a group of people into the praise and worship of the triune God. For a song to effectively achieve this general purpose, it needs to have a narrower one as well.

An excellent praise and worship song will hold together; it will be unified around a purpose--a very specific purpose.. #worshipleader #praiseandworship #worshipsong #praisesong #worshipsongwriting

An excellent song will hold together; it will be unified around a purpose–a very specific purpose.

All our songs are generally about God and some aspect of the Christian life. If you are writing a song that praises God, narrow it to praise just one of the persons of the Trinity. But you can be still more specific. If you are writing about God the Father, narrow it to one which praises God as a father, or for his Creation, or for his strength to overcome what opposes us, or his grace to save us, or his providence, or his love, or any number of specific things for which we could praise him. Of course, this narrowing of purpose might mean your song won’t be sung as often, but it will be sung longer because it will lead to more meaningful worship.

Once you’ve settled on a narrow purpose, everything in the song will serve it. We’ve already discussed diction here and here. Diction serves the central purpose. So do music and instrumentation. Every aspect of the lyrics is also oriented toward this purpose: rhyme, sound, imagery, figures of speech, rhythm and meter, and everything else that constitutes the song.

Why a narrow focus?

After we sing a song a few times and get past the worshipful feelings it generates, the words of an excellent song will take us more deeply into worship. It will do so because it will guide our thoughts and imaginations to specific ideas and images upon which to meditate.

If I ask you to think about water, your mind can go into a thousand different directions. I think about the ocean, and then about the rain running down the hill in front of my house, and then about the water lines I need to drain before the first freeze. These are all interesting, but because they are undirected, my thoughts flit from one to the other and never settle anywhere.

Now imagine a small stream in a misty forest, flowing through, and over, round grey rocks and pebbles. Some are covered with dewy moss and strewn with yellow and red maple leaves. With this specific manifestation of water, have a directed imaginative experience. Hopefully, you saw the beauty, a particular kind of beauty–for this was my purpose. Particular kinds of water can evoke ideas of peace, or awe, or fear, or cold, or discomfort, or cleansing, or sadness, or any of a hundred other ideas and images to experience.

Singing in church certainly will involve emotions, but worship should be about more than feelings. A specific focus directs engages minds and imaginations more effectively than do generalities.

Singing in church certainly will involve emotions, but worship should be about more than feelings. A specific focus directs engages minds and imaginations more effectively than do generalities.

Is “Holy Spirit” too General?

“Holy Spirit” by Francesca Battistelli brings praise to the third person of the Trinity. Musically, it will serve well to bring congregants into the worship of God, but I wonder if it is too unfocused to result in the deeper worship I’ve been talking about. You can decide for yourself and leave a comment.

Verse 1

There’s nothing worth more, that could ever come close

No thing can compare, You’re our living hope

Your presence Lord

Verse 2

I’ve tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves

Where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone

Your presence Lord

Chorus

Holy Spirit You are welcome here

Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere

Your glory God is what our hearts long for

To be overcome by Your presence Lord

Your presence Lord

Bridge

Let us become more aware of Your presence

Let us experience the glory of Your goodness

While singing this song we praise the Spirit for his worth and glory and goodness. We also sing about the longing we feel and the hope he gives. We also celebrate the freedom from shame and our own loving feelings toward him. We also confess he is the presence of God, both in me and in “the atmosphere.” And, lastly, we offer a prayer for awareness of his presence.

There is a lot going on in this song, so much so that my thoughts don’t settle on one idea because they are rapidly rushed off to the next one, and then the next.

We can sing about all of these things, but we might need four or five songs to do it in such a way that brings people into a more holistic worship–one where the mind and imagination have a particular idea, story, feeling, object on which to meditate or experience.

“Blessed Be Your Name”

A song that illustrates the benefits of a more focused purpose is “Blessed Be the Name of the Lord” by Matt Redman:

Verse 1

Blessed be Your Name in the land that is plentiful

Where Your streams of abundance flows
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your Name when I’m
Found in the desert place

Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Pre-Chorus

Every blessing You pour out I’ll turn back to praise

When the darkness closes in Lord, still I will say

Chorus

Blessed be the name of the Lord, blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Verse 2

Blessed be Your name when the
Sun’s shining down on me

When the world’s all as it should be
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name on the road marked with suffering

Though theres pain in the offering, blessed be Your name

Bridge

You give and take away, You give and take a -way

My heart will chose to say, Lord blessed be Your name

This entire song is unified around a single idea found in Job 1:21: God is worthy of our praise in both the good times and the bad times. The bridge proclaims the first part of the verse: “You give and take away.” The title and refrain carry the central idea–“Blessed be the name of the Lord.” The rest of this song does nothing but imaginatively expand on this theme.

The first verse is about praising God for the good times and the bad times. The second verse repeats this pattern. The pre-chorus gives two lines to blessing God in the good times and two lines to doing the same in the bad.

There is not a line or a word in this song that doesn’t clearly serve the purpose.

I have sung this song in times when it felt as if I was alone in the wilderness and other times in bountiful circumstances. It’s like it’s a different song. Its claim is that both the good and the bad times are blessings for which we praise God. Meditating on the nearly spontaneous movement from receiving to praising has brought me into deep worship. The act of singing itself becomes a testimony to the song’s truth.

I believe that the simple unity and specific focus of this song is one of the main reasons this song has been sung so often, and for so long in Christian gatherings.

My thesis in this series on The Poetry of Worship is that most of the songs we regularly sing in church are good songs. But with repeated singing, a great song will bring us into deeper worship. A specific focus can direct the hearts and minds of those who sing the song to a particular aspect of the nature and character of God, or of the Christian life. This leads, of course, to an edification that lasts far longer than the Sunday service. Perhaps a week. Perhaps a lifetime.

I have had the privilege to act as a consultant for aspiring praise and worship songwriters. It was a great experience. I was inspired by the creativity and passion that the writers brought to these songs, and I was happy that I could help to make these already good songs even better.

When giving, “cool feedback,” I found that one of the hardest things for me to communicate was why a particular word made the writing sound awkward or even amateurish.

I read a lot of artless writing. The amateur writer doesn’t know that the monosyllabic and ordinary word, “shows,” is sometimes the best word, as in “Creation shows the power of God.” “Shows” is always better than “exhibits,” and it is often better than “displays,” or “reveals.” When I encounter the word “disclose,” I know that someone has been abusing their thesaurus. It all depends upon the poem, and the line within the poem, of course, but these words, usually, don’t quite make it. Writers will use them for various reasons–to make a nice rhyme or to maintain a rhythm, or because they think it “sounds” better. It doesn’t.

And it’s hard to explain why. Most simply, it’s because it’s just not the perfect word.

It’s not too difficult to say why the use of the term “desire” is better in “It is my desire to honor you” than it is in, “You are the love of my desire.” But it is not so easy to explain why the word “ransom” is a better in the line “His wounds have paid my ransom” (“How deep the Fathers Love”), than it is in the line, “He is the ransom for my life” (“King of my Heat”)?

Why? I just know. And it’s not just me. Many other people also have this mysterious power. And you can have it too.

Developing a “Poetic Ear”

If you want to use words powerfully and beautifully you need to develop a poetic ear. Teaching literature for over 30 years has trained my ear. I read a lot. I read the work of amateur writers, and I read the best writers of poetry and prose in the English language. Consequently, I know where a piece of writing is on the continuum. It is no surprise, then, that I am sensitive to lyrics in our worship songs that more closely resemble my students’ writing than it does that of Robert Frost.

You too can develop this poetic ear. Read and study great poetry. My guess is that the poetry with which most praise and worship lyricists engage is that of other praise and worship lyricists. Even the big songwriters are often writing with unremarkable diction. Reading these won’t help to develop the poetic ear. If you really want to develop a sensitivity for good diction, read the very best wordsmiths–Seamus Heaney, Frost, the Brontes, Austin, Hardy, Christina Rossetti, Tennyson, Shelly, Keats, etc.

If you want to write great praise and worship lyrics, don't use other praise and worship songs as your model. Develop a poetic ear by reading the best poets and writers of prose and poetry #praiseandworship #lyrics

It will take time, but if you start reading the best novelists and poets, in ten years time, you will be writing much better lyrics than you would if you didn’t. “Ten years?!” you cry. Well, if you are 36 now, I’m telling you that by the time you are 46 you will have moved a long way down the spectrum toward being a poet. That gives you 30 years to write great songs. That’s lots of time.

Lyricist or Poet?

Good writers never compromise diction for the sake of rhyme or rhythm, or anything else. They strive to use the perfect word in every instance–they don’t settle. The perfect word will have the precise denotation and connotation, and serve the rhythm and rhythm perfectly. If they just can’t make it work, the poet will rework the line or the whole verse. They don’t stop until it is perfect.

You can’t start here, however. Before you know what the perfect word is, you need to have developed the poetic ear. Even then, it will tie you into knots at times, but that’s the challenge of poetry–and I don’t think we have any choice.

If we aspire to write songs in praise of our King, they need to be excellent. We need to strive to be poets, not just lyricists. #praiseandworship #worship

What I am asking is not easy, but if we aspire to write songs in praise of our King, they need to be excellent. Not for his sake, but for ours, and for those whom we lead in worship. We need to strive to be poets, not just lyricists.

And becoming a poet takes at least as much time and effort as it takes to become a great musician, and how long did that take?

In my last post, I introduced my project to help songwriters and worship leaders to write and select more meaningful songs for corporate worship.

Words are the poet’s primary tool so let’s start with diction–the author’s choice of words.

Denotation and Connotation

Words can carry meaning beyond the definition(s) we find in the dictionary, the denotations. Many words also have strong connotations–the associations, or imaginative meanings they carry. Connotation can be a very effective tool for writing powerful lyrics, but they can mess up a song too. When choosing words for your song, consider not just what the words mean, but also what they suggest.

Word Choice: A Literary Example

What can a sensitivity to diction do for my songwriting?

We will start by looking at a poem and discussing the effect of diction, then we will look at a praise and popular worship song that does a pretty good job with diction.

“Desert Places” by Robert Frost

Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.

The woods around it have it–it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.

And lonely as it is that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less–
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
With no expression, nothing to express.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars–on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.

This poem is the reflections on the loneliness of the speaker as he walks past a field in the evening. But the words of the poem don’t simply explain the speaker’s loneliness–they allow us to imaginatively experience them.

In the first line, the words “falling” and “fast” are repeated. Consider the effect of repeating these words in such close proximity–does it hint at a sense of alarm? The rest of the first stanza partially allays this impression with a peaceful description of the snow-covered field. But we can’t shake their disturbing effect, even in the peaceful context of a snowy evening.

When selecting worship songs, look for where the words are used in unexpected or unusual ways--these can make think again about what we know and reconsider meanings. #praiseandworship #worshipleader

After the first line of the second stanza, where the trees take possession of the field, we read, “All animals are smothered in their lairs.” This line really shows the power of diction in the hands of a master. Consider how different the effect would be if Frost had written, “All animals are cozy in their dens.” Big difference. The connotation of “smothered” is to murder someone by suffocating them with a pillow. A “lair” where beast and monsters live. Frost’s lines are disturbing, and this is the work of his choice of these particular words.

After this comes “The loneliness includes me unawares.” This line, occupying the central position of the poem, carries the central idea. The waves of loneliness come in four recurrences of the words lonely or loneliness. Another group of words reinforces the idea of, for lack of a better term, absence: “absent-spirited,” “blanker,” “no expression,” “empty,” “desert.” The diction in the second stanza strongly emphasizes the ideas of loneliness and absence. It is clear, the speaker doesn’t just lack friends. We are talking about an existential loneliness.

The word “scare” is a most intriguing word in the context of this poem. It lacks the sophistication of the other words used in this poem–it’s like he’s scoffing at the vastness of space, (“You can’t scare me!”)claiming his interior loneliness is far more profound.

This is not all we could say about this poem, but it’s enough to illustrate that the author’s choice of words can have a tremendous effect.

The best praise and worship songs will have words that excite our imaginations. #praiseandworship #worship

Word Choice: A Worship Song Example

When I went looking for a praise and worship song that provided a good example of diction, I went to the list of most popular songs from CCLI. I found very little until I got to the twenty-second in the list. And this contained lyrics from an old hymn. I did not expect to find anything close to the density effective word choice of Robert Frost’s poem above, but it is clear that selecting words for effect is not a priority for worship-song writers.

Here are some lines from Stuart Townsend’s “How Deep the Father’s Love for Us.” This song, provides us with some examples of how diction can be used in a worship song.

How deep the Father’s love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He should give His only Son
To make a wretch His treasure

How great the pain of searing loss
The Father turns His face away
As wounds which mar the Chosen One
Bring many sons to glory

. . .

Why should I gain from His reward?
I cannot give an answer
But this I know with all my heart
His wounds have paid my ransom

In the first stanza, we find the word “wretch.” The connotations of “wretch” are not simply that of a pathetic victim, but of a deliberately villainous rascal. Words like ingrate, knave, liar, and lowlife, are its synonyms. But in an amazing reversal of expectation, this villain is considered the Father’s “treasure.” Here the connotations are of heaps of gold and jewels. Meaning pulses at the intersection of “wretch” and “treasure.”

The second stanza shows us Christ’s suffering from the rejection of his Father on our behalf. The pain of loss is “searing.” It’s not just pain that this word communicates, but a very specific kind of pain. The connotations of this word suggest the deliberate burning of flesh associated with medieval torture. In spite of being ungrateful lowlifes, he pays our “ransom,”–another word loaded with meaning.

The first several times we sing this song, the music or some of the lines will bring us into worship quite easily, but after we sing it five or six times, we begin to experience a deeper conviction through the power of these words. The gratitude that results will be even greater, and probably the volume of the singing.

My desire is that almost every song we sing in church gets more powerful every time we sing it, rather than less. Diction is the first, but it is not the only step toward this end.

Occasionally, during corporate worship, my focus is taken away from the God who is deserving of all my praise and drawn to the words upon the screen. Although I try to resist the distraction, it’s not easy. Sometimes I am diverted from a bit of bad theology. Yesterday, I chucked because a line was just weird. Other times it is because I notice the words don’t really mean anything. And then there’s the mediocre, or even bad, poetry.

It is clear from their enthusiasm that many worshipers either don’t notice or don’t care. Maybe the words don’t matter as much to my fellow congregants as they do to me. They might have some way to look past the lyrics, event to the recipient of our praise.

I too am able, for a time, to ignore unremarkable lyrics. When we sing a new song in church, I don’t begin by scrutinizing every phrase, word, and rhyme to see if it is worthy of my voice. Unless the words are truly silly or empty, I can be lead to worship several times with almost any song. It is only at that point when the repeated singing of a truly great song begins to open up deeper worship through its inspired lyrics, do I notice the inadequacies of those of an inferior one.

It is at that point when the repeated singing of a great song opens up deeper worship through inspired lyrics, do I notice the inadequacies of those of an inferior one.

After this happens, every recurrence of the so-so song impedes worship, rather than enhances it. Some have told me that I have a problem, that I shouldn’t be so critical. This may be true, but I believe I have two legitimate defenses against this accusation:

Does not our creator deserve the best that we can offer up? As we bring the sacrifice praise to the altar don’t we want it to be the best of the flock? Should we not strive to present songs of praise that are excellent, not just musically but lyrically as well?

God gives good gifts for the edification of the church and the world. One of his gifts is the ability to create beautiful things–this includes poetry. Some have only the gift of appreciation, but even so, I think we need to make as much of these gifts as possible so as to honour the giver.

It is certainly true that God probably doesn’t notice the difference between our best attempts and our blemished ones, for they are offerings of a sincere, but fallen people. When God’s people are commanded to sacrifice the best lamb, grain or ox, it is for our sake. It is a reflection of how we think of him.

In the name of edifying the church, I will write a series of posts to help would-be lyricists take some steps toward becoming poets. These posts will also be useful for those who choose the songs we sing each Sunday, as they too will be equipped to better judge the poetic from the prosaic.

As we bring the sacrifice praise to the altar don't we want it to be the best of the flock? Should we not strive to present songs of praise that are excellent, not just musically but lyrically as well? #praiseandworship…

My assumption is that most of those who write the songs we sing in church started as musicians. Some of the more passionate and gifted move on to writing their own music. It is natural that some of these would then try their hand at writing a song, lyrics and all. What they may not realize is that developing the skills to write great lyrics takes at least as much time as it takes to master an instrument. A poet’s skill is in the same category as the composer of music, who has to acquire a whole set of new skills.

Developing the skills to write great lyrics takes at least as much time as it takes to master an instrument. #praiseandworship #worship

This series of posts, called The Poetry of Worship, is designed to challenge would-be lyricists to consider some principles of poetry that will start them on a journey toward writing songs that will evoke, not just the emotions of worshipers, but their imaginations as well.

Traditionally, Christian worship has been arranged around two things, the Word and the sacraments. These were the means by which human worshipers interacted with the transcendent God. In churches with the more contemporary feel, a new means of encountering God has been given center stage.

In the Roman Catholic worship service, the sacraments are emphasized–particularly the Eucharist. The primacy of the Eucharist is obvious; the altar from which Holy Communion is served is front and center.

After the Reformation, the new forms of Christian worship still emphasized Word and sacraments, but their importance was inverted. The sacraments, reduced to two, were moved to the side. The pulpit upon which sits a huge Bible takes center stage.

From Sacrament and Word to Band

More recently, North American Christianity has apparently undergone another reformation; this one much quieter than the first, but it is not insignificant. The modern church has cleared the stage of the Word and Sacrament and replaced them with the worship band. Some might argue that the Word and the sacraments are still central, it’s just that the physical representations of these things needed to be moved to make room for musicians and instruments; it’s not a shift in meaning, but merely a physical shift made from practical considerations.

My core assumption here, and why I think all of this matters so much, is that the physical environment and liturgies of worship have profound effects on the worshipers. and how they think about the God who we worship.

When the Word is the focus of worship we find a very active God. In the scriptures, God interacts with his creation and with his people. He speaks, breaths, commands, warns, condemns, promises and whispers. He causes water to come from rocks and turns it into blood. He makes walls fall and curtains tear. Jesus is the Word made flesh; he healed, walked (even on water), taught, ate, fed, died, rose and ascended. The Holy Spirit is also active as we read scripture. He guides, comforts, indwells, guards, intercedes, baptizes, restrains and combats. God is active in the sacraments as well. In baptism, he makes promises and in doing so he creates a people. In Communion, Jesus extends the elements to us and says “take and eat,” “take and drink.” When the Word and sacraments are central, and properly understood, we cannot help but understand our God to be active in worship, and in our lives.

Human beings are shaped by worship, especially through the things that we repeat every Sunday. With the weekly repetition of the Eucharist, Catholic worshipers come to the profound understanding of the unifying presence of Christ in his body the church and the Grace we receive by his death. With the Protestant emphasis on preaching, the weekly reading and exposition of scripture help the faithful to understand the centrality of the Word in our life.

When the worship band takes center stage, something changes. Or at least there is a danger that something very important could change.

Properly understood, the Word and the sacraments point to Christ and they present our interaction with an active God. When the worship band takes center stage, something changes.

Who is active in the singing part of the service? It seems to me the human beings are the primary actors, and this is a problem. We can be receiving a weekly reminder that God is passive. One might argue that, just as in the sacraments, both God and humanity take part. But this isn’t so obvious in practice. Singing is something we do–we are active, but we think of God as listening–possibly smiling during the choruses or seriously nodding if the song has a confessional element. When worship is primarily singing, God is relatively passive.

Things get worse when the band steps out of the worship leading role into a performance role making both God and congregants passive. Now the musicians and singers are the only ones doing anything in worship. Almost every worship leader that I know would recoil at this suggestion because they are forever on their guard for this shift, but just because they don’t intend it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t or it cannot happen in the minds of the congregants. It really is a no win situation; if the worship leaders are not a little animated then it seems like they are not engaged and worship lacks energy, but if they move around a little bit, they are accused of drawing attention to themselves. Perhaps this conundrum is a symptom of the deeper issue. That the worship band shouldn’t be front and centre in the first place.

The problem is that from the central position, the Praise and Worship band is almost identical to secular performance bands. It’s a minuscule shift, then, for the congregation to move into the role of the audience. This shift isn’t unavoidable, but it requires some deliberate effort from the individual worshiper to experience the Sunday worship music in a different way than they would a concert. And churchgoers aren’t usually doing this work.

I am certainly not saying that singing praise and worship songs in church is a bad thing, we may have gained much with this shift in focus, but perhaps we’ve lost something too.

I’m not sure where to go from here, but I have some discussion questions that might help us address these issues.

How can we do communion and baptism in ways that help us to see God’s activity in them? If we’re calling them ordinances instead of sacraments, should we rethink that?

Can we put the table, the font and the pulpit someplace on the stage, with the praise and worship band?

And can we preach from something other than a music stand?

How can we do worship music in such a way that it’s as unlike a rock concert or dance club as we can make it? Can mix our volumes in such a way that the voices of the worshipers are heard? Can we reduce the lighting on the musicians? And can we turn down the bloody bass!?

A few weeks back, we attended the parish Communion service in the Bath Abbey.

Two children were baptized in the service.

Baptism services always get me thinking.

While I attend a church that practices only believer baptism, I think that infant baptism was practiced in the New Testament church and is therefore biblical. I concede that the scriptural support of infant baptism is contestable, but what is incontestable is the practical superiority of infant baptism as a ritual that prepares us to resist modern idolatries.

The community dimension:

On two occasions in the service, once from the altar and once from the Victorian baptismal font by the entrance of the sanctuary, the officiant emphasized the community of believers that was at that moment gathered around the child. This community is to be “the resources and support” to the parents of those about to be baptized. The importance of the community and its relationship to the child about to be baptized is central to the ceremony.

All those assembled made a solemn promise to meaningfully participate in the raising of these children in the faith. The parents did, of course, but godparents were commissioned as well, adding another layer to the community. I found it fascinating that the godparents made the same promises as did the parents. They didn’t just consent, but acknowledged their inadequacy by saying, “With the help of God we will.”

Interestingly, the vows made by the community were almost exactly the same as those made by the parents and godparents. They promised to “welcome and uphold” those about to be baptized, to “pray for them” and “draw them by example into the community of faith and walk with them in the way of Christ.” They too acknowledge their limitations by promising, “With the help of God we will.” So many people are committing to these children, and they just lay there oblivious to it all.

Imagine the impact of this ritual over the life of the Christian. Every baptism service is a reminder of the same basic truths:

That every adult within the community has the responsibility in drawing the individual into the community.

That human effort alone is insufficient to draw the individual into the flock.

That the body of Christ, comes first– the eye is there for the body, not the body for the eye.

That this is all about Grace; I was welcomed into the family of God, and I could do nothing but drool.

Where churches practice believer’s baptism, a “baby dedication” replaces baptism to commemorate the inclusion of the child in the church community. While the congregational will often make a promise, the focus of this, usually casual, event is on the commitment of the parents. In the believer’s baptism, the role of the community is as a passive observer as the baptism is the result of the individual’s decision to follow Jesus. As in modern culture, in the modern ceremony of baptism, the role of the larger community is diminished and that of the individual is expanded.

Through baptism, individuals are not choosing God, rather, God is building a people.

The God Dimension:

The Liturgy of Baptism we followed in Bath Abbey begins, “In baptism the Lord is adding to our number those he is calling.” The idea here is that through baptism, God is building a people.

The liturgy begins with the recognition that baptism is about what God is doing. God is very active in baptism; he’s not just adding; he’s also calling, helping and giving.

The liturgy declares that faith is a gift. A gift needs a giver. God is the giver and the gift is underserved. All Christians believe this, but human helplessness is better illustrated a drooling baby than a 23-year-old who has finally decided to follow Jesus.

The hebdomadal dimension:

Baptismal Font in St. Gile’s Church, Sidbury

This is a rare word that means weekly.

When you enter the Bath Abbey or any Anglican church, you walk past the baptismal font. It’s very large and it’s been there hundreds of years. The members of this church were likely baptized at this very font. But even if they were not, every week when they gather to worship, they walk past this physical reminder of their own baptism–they are reminded again of the basic truths inherent in the service of baptism in the Church of England.

I might be an exception, but the presence of the font in every church I entered, reminded me of my own baptism into a community that in its largest sense, includes the Anglican worshipers in the churches I visited this summer.

I think that a weekly reminder of God’s grace and the community of faith might be a powerful corrective to the idolatry of individualism that so dominates our thinking in the modern church.

Obviously, my argument here will not convince any believer baptists to become baby baptizers, but regardless of who we baptize when (let’s put baby dedication into here as well), we need to be deliberate about emphasizing God’s actions and the important role of the community going forward.

On a recent trip to downtown Vancouver, my wife and I popped into Christ Church Cathedral on the corner of Georgia and Burrard. I find it hard to resist a cathedral and always try the doors to see if I can get a look inside. The door was unlocked and a pleasant woman offered to answer our questions. I asked about the beautiful interior and she was delighted to tell us about the recent renovations. There was even a photo album.

The original church was filled with local cedar, but in a previous renovation, the original wood had been covered. The red cedar ceiling had been covered by fiber-board. It was the same story with the floor. With this new renovation, the foul fiber-board and hideous carpeting had been removed and the original red and yellow cedar, covered up for decades is once again gracing parishioners and visitors with its beauty.

Why had the natural wood of the ceiling and floor been covered in the previous renovation? It seems preposterous that anyone could think that fiber-board and carpeting were an improvement on the natural cedar, but they apparently did.

Changing Fashions, Changing Ideas

This got me thinking about change, more specifically, changing tastes. It’s a truism that fashions change, but they don’t just change; they change radically–what is all the rage in one time, is hideous and vile in another age. This is true whether we are talking about clothing, church interiors or ideas.

The second truism is that we are completely aware of the first truism. We are somehow convinced that the way we think at the present moment is, at long last, the end of changing “truth”–with today’s thinking, we have arrived.

Previous generations had it wrong, but we have figured it out. As dumb as it seems now, there was a time when it was generally thought that wood ought to be covered by synthetic materials, and in fifty years the congregation will likely vote to cover the wood with synthetic polar bear fur. So goes fashion. So also go our ideas.

The Fashion of Truth

I look at some of the ideas that are spreading throughout culture, replacing the old ones, and I think they are beautiful changes. Others are more like ghastly fiberboard and anemic pink carpeting obscuring beautiful red and yellow cedar. And we take these new ways of thinking as absolute truth. Consequently, in our conversations and disagreements, we condemn those with whom we disagree as bigots and freaks and ogres. Given that our most recent truth is just a phase, perhaps we ought to be a little less certain about everything–a little less venomous.

In our conversations and disagreements we must remember that the way we think today, is a fad. Consequently, we ought to be a little less certain about everything--a little less venomous.

Doomed to Relativism?

I believe that there is something under the intellectual fads and whims of our culture that never changes. Core ideas like courage is better than cowardice and it’s evil to harm a child for one’s own pleasure and the ocean is sublime.

Just because it’s new and in fashion, doesn’t mean it’s objectively true. I say objectively because, although I’m not entirely sure which ideas are cedar and which are fiber-board, I firmly believe that there is an objective truth. We will continue down our slide of subjectivism for a time, we will continue to believe that we create our own reality, but I hope at some point we will look back and wonder what the heck we were thinking. And rip up the pasty carpet to expose the rich wood beneath.

We will continue down our slide of subjectivism for a time, but at some point, we will look back and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

When I am in Europe, I worship with the Roman Catholics. On a recent trip, my wife and I attended services in the cathedrals of three different cities–Salzburg, Vienna and Prague. Because I speak neither German or Czech, I didn’t get much out of what was said in the sermon, but I did walk out of each service having learned something very important about our Lord and Saviour, His Grace, my faith, our worship–all of which have a little something to do with Protestantism and the Reformation.

Salzburg Cathedral–from exquisite beauty to holiness.

The interior of Salzburg Cathedral is beautifully ornate, but not gaudy. From my humble pew, I looked up and was overwhelmed, and I realized that the encounter with holiness, is facilitated by exquisite beauty.

My church at home is very nice, but the priorities are different–utility and stewardship are the guiding principles for construction–and the comfort of the congregants. The seats in my home church are very comfortable. Even in this most beautiful of cathedrals, one always sits on very hard wooden benches. The back is set at almost 90 degreed to the seat. The seatback is capped with a board upon which the kneeling parishioner behind you can rest his elbows, so you can’t really lean back. These were definitely not designed with my comfort in mind.

It begins to dawn on me that very little thought has gone into my experience of this service.

The music that Sunday morning included an organ, a small orchestra, and more than one choir. These are located behind and above me so I can’t see the musicians. Obviously, the music is not performed for me–I am graciously allowed to listen in. In my home church, it’s not about me either, but the excellent praise band occupies the same place as would a performance band would, so I have to do the work of remembering that they aren’t there for my listening pleasure. I sometimes forget.

Pretty much everything in any church service is directed toward the worship of the triune God, but in Salzburg Cathedral, it was so obvious. The building and the music represent the very best of human achievement, and none of it was for me. That I can see, hear and enjoy them is pure grace.

St. Augustine in Vienna – where divine Grace intersects with nature

The Hapsburgs were christened, married and buried at St. Augustine so this cathedral has seen a lot of pageantry and ceremony over the years. The mass still reflects a polish and flair consistent with this history. I particularly noticed this in the treatment of the elements of the Eucharist.

In all Catholic services, the host, what we call, “the bread,” is treated with a great deal of respect. When congregants enter the door, they make the sign of the cross, and they genuflect before entering the pew. Both these actions are directed toward the host. Before, during and after the Eucharist, the actions of the officiating priests all reflect the veneration of the host. This reverence is seen in every Catholic service. In the mass at St. Augustine, all this was done with particular precision and flourish.

This elaborate treatment of the Communion elements is easily explained. Jesus Christ is present in the elements. From the New Testament until the sixteenth century, all Christians believed that those who partook of communion somehow received the body and blood of Jesus. Exactly how this happened was an unfathomable mystery, and according to the church fathers, it was supposed to remain that way. In 1215, against the warnings of the church fathers, the church accepted transubstantiation, that is, the conversion of the communion elements into the body and blood of Christ, as the explanation for Christ’s presence in the Eucharist. Protestants reject transubstantiation as the explanation for what happens in Communion, but some of us have duplicated the error of the Roman Church in 1215; we attempt to explain “the unfathomable mystery.”

The explanation for the unfathomable mystery is that there is no unfathomable mystery—the elements are just plain ol’ bread and wine. These are “just symbols” of the body and blood of Christ, and the entire point of the celebration of the Last Supper is to remember this past event. This explanation is a result of the modern tendency to separate the physical from the spiritual, to the detriment of both. The physical elements, then, are reduced to mere “crackers and juice,” and the spiritual dimension of the meal is reduced to mere remembrance.

What God did through the death and resurrection of Jesus is inseparably physical and the spiritual. The sacrament by which we remember this redemptive work is not simply a physical symbol, but also an actual spiritual event where Grace intersects with nature, in which a rational human eats and drinks in faith and so, encounters the divine.

Does that sound a little perplexing? It ought to be. That’s why it was called an “unfathomable mystery.” While I watched the Eucharist at St. Augustine, I was impressed with the mystery and wonder of it all. I thought I could bring some of this wonder to my own participation in the Lord’s Supper.

St. Vitus in Prague – The Kingdom of Heaven is not a democracy

St. Vitus has a commanding view of Prague. This Gothic structure stands within the castle complex situated on top of the highest point, so it is visible from anywhere in the city.

Getting into the service was a little bit tricky because church officials stood at the door to prevent tourists from entering the church before mass, while at the same time allowing worshipers to pass. We fell into both categories, I suppose, but we entered unimpeded because we approached the door with the confidence of a parishioner. Other camera-toting tourists would have to wait in the long line until the last mass was over.

This was the oldest of the cathedrals in which we worshiped on this trip; parts of the structure date back to the 14th century. The age of the church facilitated a connection to the medieval worshipers who also looked up into these same ceiling vaults.

I couldn’t understand the homily, so I looked at the windows.

Highest and most central in the central window was a depiction of God the Father embracing his crucified son. Beneath these dominant figures were haloed, major saints. All these figures were attended to by angels which were arranged according to their heavenly status. Beneath these were even smaller images of other saints. From my position in the pew, I looked up to them all, reinforcing my place in the hierarchy of the universe.

I’m way down here—the least of these.

This is a good position for a North American Protestant to be in every now and then. The window presents a medieval reality—a hierarchy. I am a product of the Reformation and the ensuing centuries. So is my church at home. I was recently disturbed to hear a church leader describe the Reformation as a holy response to church corruption. He implied that God’s endorsement of this step toward purity was certain. It is certainly true that corruption pushed Luther and others away from the Roman Church, but we tend to forget that it was also a movement toward something else. It was a step toward freedom—freedom from authority, and would eventually lead to one of our cultures most serious idolatries.

The Reformation was the first major step toward this freedom that continues to this day. Rebellion against the authority of the pope was followed by rebellions against monarchies in 1640, 1776 and 1789. In 1882, Nietzsche’s madman, declaring that “God is dead,” captured the spirit of our rebellion against the authority of God. The last century has seen freedom spread into all different directions—and some of these are very good directions. But have you noticed how much we talk about Freedom these days? We sing its praises between innings at baseball games and before NASCAR races— it is now linked with military power and has become the reason we have fought all our wars. Freedom–individual freedom—has become our god, submission has become sin. Any form of authority is evil—even that of our biology.

In the absence of this hierarchy, we have placed the autonomous individual at the top of a flattened, dark and lonely reality. This is why individualism ultimately leads to despair. Individualism dominates Western culture and has seeped into our churches as well. It is countered by the windows in St. Vitas. Looking up at the window I experience my smallness through awe, rather than loneliness, and see that the cosmos is full of light and love.

C. S. Lewis says that the medieval model, as presented in this stained-glass window, has a “serious defect,” that being “it is not true.” Nor, he goes on to say, is any model “true.”

The cathedral and mass do not necessarily represent a wholly true view of reality, but they do represent a different reality from the modern ideas that are woven into the fabric of our Protestantism. We might benefit from the admission that some aspects of worship in the cathedral do a little better job of engaging our imagination and allowing us to experience the significance of things.

Growing up in the Christian Reformed Church (CRC), I don’t recall ever hearing the term “inerrancy,” not from the pulpit, and not in catechism classes or at youth conferences. At Calvin College, I stayed up many nights until 3 am discussing all sorts of theological issues, and I don’t think a single one of them had anything to do with biblical inerrancy. I didn’t know that in 1978 there had been a major conference that generated The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy. You’d have thought that this sort of thing would have trickled up the highway to my dorm room by 1980. It didn’t. And it didn’t really come up in the following decades either.

Now, I hear the term inerrancy a lot. Part of the reason is that I go to a different church, but it’s also because the internet has me reading what other Christians are writing. I get the sense that those who use the word inerrancy, read the Bible differently than I do. I struggle with embracing the idea of biblical inerrancy, not because I think the Bible is wrong, but because of something else. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I read James R. Payton Jr.’s Getting the Reformation Wrong: Correcting some Misunderstandings (IVP Academic, 2010).

Inspiration or Revelation?

Biblical inerrancy is a bigger deal for some Christians than for others and it comes down to what you think the Bible is, revelation or inspiration. Of course, it’s both. It is not an either/or proposition. But they are not the same things, and one will be often (perhaps inevitably) be subordinated to the other.

After reading Payton’s book, I realized that in the CRC, as I experienced it, the Bible was revelation, more than inspiration: God reveals himself through his creation–general revelation. He reveals himself through the written word–special revelation. And he reveals himself through his incarnate word–his Son. God reveals himself. Biblical inerrancy isn’t much of a concern for those who see the Bible as revelation because the focus is on the relationship between the readers and the person we find in its pages–inerrancy is not descriptive of a relationship.

The inerrancy of scripture is necessary and logical when we see the Bible as inspiration, or “the inspired Word of God.” In this view, God speaks to us through scripture, and because he is all knowing, and doesn’t lie, anything contained therein is objectively true. The Bible is, therefore, inerrant.

The inerrancy of scripture is logical if the Bible is inspired. But is this primarily what it is?

These different views of the Bible have a long history. According to James R. Payton Jr., the Reformers saw the Bible as revelation. Later, after the Reformers passed on, the Protestant scholastics emphasized the divine inspiration of scripture in order to defend Protestant ideas against Catholic attackers, who used scholastic methods to argue—a “fight fire with fire” approach. Because of its emphasis on objective truth, the Bible as inspiration is a more useful tool in such debates.

To illustrate these different approaches, Payton uses the analogy of studying a frog:

One way is to watch frogs for hours on end, the other is to dissect the frogs. The Reformers watched the frogs, and they kept doing so, repeatedly and at great length. The protestant scholastics dissected the frogs and probably came to quicker conclusions about what could be said about the frogs; the frogs never jumped again, though.

These contrasting approaches have resulted in different views of scripture that are still with us today.

Although Christians generally believe that God had an active role in shaping scripture, the degree to which He was active in the process is a subject of debate. Was it 100% God, or were the historical human authors significantly responsible for the contents? Zondervan’s Five Views of Biblical Inerrancy explores some of the main points on the continuum. Where you end up on the continuum has something to do with how much you take the idea of revelation into account to shape your ideas of inspiration.

Another essential question is, what is it that God inspired? Did he inspire the text, the authors, or the overall sense or spirit of scripture? If one starts with the primacy of revelation, the spirit or sense of scripture is the object of inspiration. When inspiration is the starting point, the object of God’s inspiration moves from sense toward text. And again, if God actively inspired the text of the Bible, then it can’t possibly contain erroneous information–it must be objectively true.

Those who are concerned with inerrancy will usually include the text as one of the objects of God’s direct inspiration.

Informational or Relational?

When we think of the Bible primarily as revelation, we are emphasizing the relational dimension of scripture. The Bible is a revelation between persons–God and his people.

When we think of the Bible as the Word of God. We think in terms of God speaking to us through scripture, telling us things that we need to know. Scriptures are thought of, primarily, a source of true information.

Is the Bible, primarily, the Spoken Word or the Special Revelation of God?

James R. Payton Jr. says that the emphasis on the inspiration of scripture leads us to a “depersonalized” reading of the Bible. It can have a significant effect on, among other things, the way we understand sin and faith. With a relational reading of the Bible, sin is understood as unfaithfulness to God and the effect on this relationship is like that which occurs in any broken relationship—estrangement. These terms describe a personal relationship. The Bible as inspired text may result in a depersonalized view of sin. Sin is thought of as an infraction against God’s divine law and the effect is guilt. The terms, and the feelings they describe are less personal.

How one understands faith is also affected by the relationship of revelation to inspiration. The relational understanding of faith is thought of as “cleaving to God.” The more depersonalized approach understands faith as the acceptance of right doctrine. Both perspectives are found in the Bible; they don’t cancel each other out, but the emphasis of one idea over the other is not without effect.

One last example, on which I have previously written. Do the sermons in your church end with applications or implications? It’s not so much the word, as it is the idea behind the word. The term application implies an impersonal adhesion of the object to the subject. We stick the lesson onto the listeners like a band-aid onto a scraped elbow. It makes the recipient feel better, but it doesn’t do much else. Although implication suggests a lot more ambiguity than application, it is usually a better term because the clarity of the application is often achieved through a reduction of the truth, either factual or moral, to information. Implication is not about how the sermon fits into, or onto, my life; it’s about how I fit into the story of the Bible and into a relationship with the person of God behind the scriptures. Implication bridges the gap between subject and object because I enter the story and it enters me–I experience the story and in so doing, I encounter the truth.

There was a long stretch in my life where I hardly read the Bible at all. My problem was that I thought of the Bible as if it were primarily informative and the reason for reading it was to acquire the right knowledge. I didn’t feel as if I needed more knowledge than I could glean from sermons and books about the Bible. I’m much more inspired to read the Bible when it is about a person-to-person relationship, about finding in its pages the God who made us and loves us and seeks a relationship with us. I have a strong desire for this relationship.

It’s sort of like the difference between reading an encyclopedia and reading a long letter received from a distant and cherished friend or lover. Are the contents of each true–inerrant, if you will? Sure they are, but it is not the veracity of the information in the love letter that motivates you to devour every word–even the description of yesterday’s weather.